The 2nd-4th of February 2010 saw Amsterdam’s RAI Centre hosting Integrated Systems Europe. Despite the ‘Tough’ (!!) economic climate across Europe, the attendance was up 14% on 2009 to 28,489 across the 3 days.

Some of the team from Production:av went along to have a look at the new products and services on offer, with the aim of coming away with some new tools to help us meet our clients needs more effectively.

The Show

ISE spans across multiple halls at the RAI, giving a chance for Systems Integrators and AV specialists to see product ranges from all the major manufacturers such as Extron, Kramer, Barco, NEC, Mitsubishi and many more. With it’s size it’s hard to see everything in 1 day, so I’d recommend going for two days. We spent day 1 going from stand to stand to see what was available before returning to those that we needed to see more of. With the RAI being well connected to the city, it’s easy to get value accommodation away from the show and still not spend too long travelling.

There we several areas we went to look at:

Digital Signage.

This is a market that is continuing to expand, with more vendors entering the market with their products. There isn’t a huge variation – essentially there are media player type units (Onelan being one such manufacturer) which are often network-able, software solutions such as Nexus On Demands solution, and then integrated solutions in to screens such as those from Phillips. There didn’t really appear to be any groundbreaking releases, but more that products were becoming more mature and stable. We certainly liked the feature set of the Onelan products.

Projection

There were a few new projection products. Projectiondesign’s new remote light source projectors have clear benefits for use in meeting rooms where projector noise is not ideal, and also makes changing lamps easier in projectors that might be mounted in inaccessible places.

Christie Digital Launched the Microtile – a 10″x16″ rear projection LED driven DLP projection cube, that works to about a 720×540 resolution, with a very thin bezel, beating the new crop of ‘Seamless’ LCD’s.  Utilising the ‘ECU’ they can be stacked and tiled in a multitude of shapes. It’s great idea, and looks brilliant, with the LED’s giving a great colour range, but I’m unsure that it’s going to take much work from Seamless LCD’s. It takes about 4 tiles to be a simillar size to a 42″ LCD, but each tile is about twice the price of a single LCD…. I’m also not convinced that the rigging has been thought through properly, but once we get an onsite demo, then we may be convinced otherwise.

Multitouch

Is everywhere! Apple have probalby helped to bring this technology to the fore with the iPhone and now the iPad, but many others are working to create large visuals solutions that embrace the technology. I think the two high lights for me were the NEC Multi-Touch ability of it’s 70 Series Projection Cube. The ability to scale google maps on a large screen, and across the seams was impressive.

The other impressive option was the Multi Touch rear projection film that enables Multi Touch for shop fronts and other display scenarios. Although the demonstration unit was a proof of concept rather than finished product it worked well. They hope to have large areas (2m Diagonal and above) available around 2nd quarter 2010.

3D – LED, TV’s and Projection

Again, it looks like 2010 could be the year of 3D- I haven’t even got an HD ready TV at home yet! That said the slab of 3D LED that Video Equipment Rentals were demonstrating was pretty clever. The 3m viewing distance didn’t do it justice, but in an arena sized venue it must work a treat.

There were also a few different 3D systems in evidence. From those that use polarising or shuttered lenses to those that didn’t require glasses. I think there’s still work to be done on the 3D front – being a glasses wearer, I don’t want to have to wear another pair of glasses to watch TV. And when it comes to the systems that require no additional paraphernalia, there’s still work to be done, as I’m not somebody that can sit still for that long.

Other bits.

There were a few other bits that shone out – Yamaha’s Digital Video I/O boards which enable audio from the desk to be embedded/deembedded onto an SDI video feed (useful for sending Video/Audio over a single BNC to a remote room).

Then there is the Neutrik Optical Con Quad – a ruggedised 4 pole fibre connector connector, that combined with the relevant fibre cables will give a very robust system for the deployment of DVI and HDMI (and if you feel the need, Audio!) systems in the events sector.

Overall?

Would we go back? Yes. It’s a great way to see and compare equipment, and a good chance to find those useful bits that you need but didn’t know where to find them. It also gives a chance to catch up with the manufacturers, find out what’s new and potentially save some time compared to taking various hours out to chat with the reps.

Did we find the bits we were after? Yes. Keep an eye on the website for upcoming news about products and services that we’ll be bringing to you.

All in all, a worth while trip. See you at ISE 2011!